Love on Lexington Avenue(55)



Claire smiled at the decisive note in Audrey’s voice. “Says the woman who’s met him once.”

“I know he’s one of the good ones because you think he is.”

“Well, I also married Brayden.”

“Still,” Audrey insisted. “You wouldn’t have, um, gotten back on the horse with anyone who was even remotely like Brayden.”

“I love your optimism,” Claire said with a smile. “Maybe you can be the one to break the news to Naomi. Help spin it so that she doesn’t freak out?”

“Why would she freak out? She was all on board with you getting laid, as she phrased it.”

“Yeah, but she didn’t want me to with Scott,” Claire said, feeling a little guilty that she’d done the exact opposite of the plan she and Naomi had devised to keep Scott at arm’s length.

“Why?”

“She doesn’t want me to get hurt.”

“And she thinks Scott will hurt you?”

“She knows Scott is leaving.”

“Right,” Audrey said. “Wanderlust.”

“Something like that,” Claire muttered, taking a sip of her coffee.

“But at least you know he’s leaving. You’re prepared for it.”

Claire nodded, even as a little knot formed in her stomach at the thought. She did know it. She’d known it all along. A couple of weeks ago, she hadn’t cared. Had maybe even been a little envious of his ability to pick up and go wherever the wind blew him, to agree to whatever project appealed to him in the moment, and as he’d put it, figure out the rest later.

Now, however, the knowledge that she’d be unlikely to see him again after he was done with her renovation didn’t sit quite as easily. Now, she was painfully aware that she’d come to care for the man and that she’d done what she’d promised that she’d never do after Brayden:

Set herself up to lose someone. And to hurt from that loss.

Claire groaned. “Oh damn. I think I just realized that Naomi was right. I think I’m falling for a guy who’s already got one foot out the door.”

“Maybe,” Audrey said, putting an arm around her shoulders. “Maybe it’ll hurt. But you can’t shut yourself off from good opportunities just to protect yourself from risking the bad.”

Claire nearly pointed out that Audrey could perhaps use some of her own advice. For all her optimism, in the year plus she’d known the other woman, she’d never seen Audrey put her heart on the line. But she always sensed that Audrey was still figuring that out for herself, and that it wasn’t her place to go opening doors that weren’t ready to be opened.

Audrey squeezed her shoulder. “I’m so excited you brought me here to talk about boys. And that you’re having sex again. I’m kind of jealous.”

Claire laughed. “Well, actually, that’s not why I texted this morning. The Scott problem aside, I’m having another dilemma.”

“Shoot.”

“I’m bored,” Claire announced without preamble. “I literally have nothing to do with my time, Audrey.”

“Hmm,” Audrey said, removing her arm from Claire’s shoulders and sitting forward, her fingers tapping over her mouth in a thinking motion. “I admit I’ve been sort of wondering about that.”

“Wondering what the hell I do with myself all day?”

“No, I know you’ve kept busy furniture shopping, antique shopping, doing whatever the heck one does in Home Depot. But I also was sort of figuring that there might be a bit of a void when the house was done.”

“Void feels like an understatement.”

“Well,” Audrey said, “are you thinking you want to get a job? Start a club for widows of shitty husbands? Train for a marathon?”

Claire gave her a look.

“Right, not that last one. What about starting a blog? You could talk about home improvement stuff? Or, like, you could get a fancy, super-difficult cookbook and blog all about the process of trying to cook your way through it. People love that stuff. Sort of like that movie Julie and Julia?”

“Maybe,” Claire said, not hating the blog idea, but not particularly warming to it, either.

“Any hobbies? Scrapbooking? Oh!” Audrey turned toward her, eyes wide. “I know! Calligraphy. Remember when my girlfriend was throwing that fancy baby shower, but the gal she hired to address all the envelopes broke her wrist playing tennis? You volunteered to do it, and they were amazing. My friend couldn’t stop talking about it.”

Claire snapped to attention. How had she not thought of that? She had taken calligraphy lessons as a teen, mostly as a way to satisfy her parents’ insistence that she have some sort of extracurricular activity, and to satisfy her lifelong aversion to sports. Their neighbor at the time did professional calligraphy and offered to give her lessons. Claire had agreed, mainly because it had appealed more than the drama club and debate team, and had fallen in love with it. She’d even made some money from the hobby during college when she’d answered an ad for the alumni department looking for someone to handwrite letters to the school’s biggest donors.

She was good at it, and more importantly, she loved it. Which was why it was a little embarrassing to have to admit . . .

“I don’t have much of the stuff for it anymore,” she told Audrey. “The paper, the nibs, I’d have to replace everything.”

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